FPL will change how it transfers customer calls to affiliate

Starting soon, new Florida Power & Light customers will get a warning before their call is sent to a sister company that sells surge protectors and other products.

The state Public Service Commission told the state’s largest utility on Tuesday that it also has to warn customers that their personal information – such as names, addresses and emails – may be shared with this unregulated company.

Customers who call FPL to sign up for service are automatically transferred to FPL Energy Services and they’re pitched products that protect their belongings against power problems. Last year, a PSC audit found that some customers didn’t realize they didn’t have to listen to the pitch.

FPL Attorney John Butler has said the utility already tells customers before transferring them and it has steps in place to protect customers' privacy but he said Tuesday that FPL is fine with changing its script.

At a meeting in Tallahassee, the PSC also gave FPL the green light to bypass a competitive bidding rule for a $1 billion project to rebuild a power plant in Fort Lauderdale in 2016. The agency also approved a review FPL does every five years of nuclear decommissioning costs.

The issues were largely without controversy but there was a dispute behind the scenes when an FPL customer complained about not being allowed to weigh in.

Competitive bidding

FPL plans to formally propose its Port Everglades project later this year or early next year. The upgraded plant would produce 1,280 megawatts of power, or 7 percent more than it currently provides, and it's projected to provide fuel and other savings to customers of more than $400 million – after accounting for construction costs, according to FPL.

A PSC rule requiring a utility to get proposals from outside groups that want to sell the additional power needed before deciding whether to build a plant itself would take longer and cost customers more money, FPL has said. The utility would still bid out the construction and the purchase of any major equipment required.

The PSC approved a similar request when FPL proposed conversions for its Cape Canaveral plant in Brevard County and another plant in Riviera Beach despite some concerns about it.

The bid rule wasn't waived for a generator FPL proposed for western Palm Beach County and FPL evaluated five options before deciding to build the project itself, according to PSC Spokeswoman Kirsten Olsen. FPL estimated its project would save customers $600 million compared to the next best option and "these results were also reviewed and confirmed by an independent evaluator," she wrote in an email.

Some say the competitive bidding rule isn't effective anyway: It allows utilities to evaluate the bids, including their own proposals, and no major electric utility has ever picked an outside energy producer's project over their own, as far as PSC employees can recall, Olsen said.

Government agencies are required to shop around for many of their large expenses. The town of Jupiter Island in south Martin County, which wanted to bury its power lines underground, managed to save $3 million by shopping around for some of the work FPL would have done.

FPL affiliate

A PSC audit found that new customers calling FPL were transferred to Energy Services at the end of the call and were told to hold for their "confirmation numbers," which were just their account numbers, and were asked for addresses and other information.

PSC employees recommended requiring FPL to change its phone script to be clear customers are being transferred Energy Services. Commissioner Julie Brown said the script should also be clear that private customer information may be shared with the affiliate and PSC Chairman Art Graham said FPL should only send customers to the affiliate if they explicitly say they want to be transferred.

FPL has about 30 days to revise the script.

Associate Public Counsel Joe McGlothlin, from the state office that advocates for utility customers, suggested the PSC look at the issue more closely when evaluating FPL’s next proposal to raise base rates. “Think how much advertising a company would have to do to get the same kind of saturation,” he said.

FPL has informed the PSC that Energy Services pays a fee for the transferred calls. The affiliate also charges companies such as the Sun Sentinel for offering their products during the calls, according to the PSC.

The PSC audit, which involved more than 60 questions, found FPL is complying with regulations requiring utilities to charge affiliates a fair price for services and FPL has already fixed another problem the audit identified: FPL did not bill Energy Services for more than $32,000 in printing and payment processing costs in 2008 and 2009.